FROM THE FRUITS TO THE ROOTS!

USING FIRST PRINCIPLES THINKING TO CREATE BREAKTHROUGHS!

You know how much I like to think and ask questions. You know how much I like to make all of you think and ask questions. Two thirds of these episodes are designed specifically to get you to think and ask questions. Ask questions about your life, about your business, about your relationships, about everything. I did a whole episode back in May of last year entitled, ‘How Do You Know?” In that episode, I simply challenged you, the listener, to unknow what you think you know and to do so by constantly asking the question, ‘how do you know?’ Ask it of yourself, ask it in conversation, ask it of anything you believe to be certain of as a way to free up your knowing for bigger and better things. 

Now, lest you think there is some hidden agenda in all this, let me put your mind at ease. It’s simply a practice, an exercise I learned from my Zen teacher many years ago as a way to remain true to a higher goal, that goal being to always seek the truth in all things. That was his challenge to all of the students. Don’t just accept as something as truth or fact simply because somebody told you so. Always follow up with, ‘how do you know?’ Don’t accept as fact something you haven’t tested yourself simply because somebody before you tested something similar. When we accept things as truth and fact that we have never questioned or tested ourselves, that’s called reasoning by analogy. Reasoning by analogy is essentially what we learn to do throughout our lives as a way to make quick decisions that don’t require much thinking on our part. Analogical thinking is looking at what others are doing and, essentially doing the same thing. Businesses and business-people the world over use this form of assumptive or analogical reasoning because it’s easy, it’s fast, and most times it gets a reasonable result. It’s not creative, by definition, it’s merely iterative, or repeating what somebody else is doing. Why? Because why not? That’s essentially what that type of thinking and reasoning boils down to and I dare say that almost 100% of your thinking on a day to day basis is this type of thinking. It’s not the type of thinking that’s changing the world, it’s not creating anything new, it’s not solving a problem in a unique way, and it’s nothing to pat yourself the back for. It’s a form of survival thinking that simply looks around to check what everyone else is doing and then says, ‘well they’re doing it, I guess we should do it that way to’. 

With that I want to introduce you to a form of thinking that has been around for thousands of years, but utilized by only a select few great thinkers, great inventors, great leaders, and great business-people through the ages. One of history’s greatest thinkers, the philosopher teacher, Aristotle, reasoned that all things could, and should, be broken down to their smallest component parts or categories and that when you found the smallest category in any domain, you’ve found what he called  a first principle. Aristotle was also what is referred to as an empiricist, which is somebody who believes that all knowledge is gained through experience via the 5 senses. He believed in gaining knowledge through direct experience, and then using reason to give that experience some structure, so to speak, with which to make assertions about life. These assertions, according to Aristotle, became known as first principles, or, the first basis from which everything is known. In other words, never assuming as fact or truth something that hasn’t been experienced and reasoned for oneself. I’ve been a fan of first principles thinking every since my teacher made me aware of all of my assumptions and in just how many ways I was reasoning and thinking by analogy, which, again, is simply copying what other people do with slight variations. In fact, if you really think about it, that’s the way we’re taught to think, to some degree in school. Although I had some really great teachers throughout my experience growing up, we weren’t really encouraged or celebrated for thinking on our own or questioning things deeply. 

The western education system tends to reward those who follow the rules, don’t make waves, do your homework, which typically consisted of finding answers in a book for the questions on a handout. Tests were the same for all the kids in the class and you were graded based on the answers that were correct. Not correct based on a deep and arduous testing of the evidence against experience, as both Aristotle and Socrates would demand, no, correct based on a predetermined answer key. The test questions were binary in nature. The answers were typically either right or you were wrong. Get enough of them right based on the answer key and you got applause. Get too many wrong and you were the outcast. That’s how we slowly learned that it pays to be right based on the predetermined answers and score sheet. Follow what everybody else is doing, don’t stand out, reason by analogy, do what you’re told, and believe what you’re told because there were no answer sheets containing answers for questions that weren’t on the test. It’s either right or wrong and everybody gets the same questions and the same test. In essence, they learned the learning right out of us to a large degree. Or, said a different way, they taught us how to learn, they didn’t really teach us how to think. They taught us how to learn what the books wanted us to learn, that’s called the curriculum. They didn’t necessarily teach us how to think deeply about a subject, strip away all assumptions, get to the smallest and most fundamental components of a thing, and then reason up from there. No, they essentially taught us to follow what everybody else is doing because it’s the quickest and easiest way to get students through the system. 

Please don’t be offended if you’re a schoolteacher, I’m not blaming you. I’m merely pointing out how we are taught to assume much of what we purport to know based on somebody else telling us is it so. And, after all, why wouldn’t we? If it gets us the grade, moves us on to the next level, and gets us out into the world where we can really start to live, why buck the system? That is unless and until you decide to major in scientific studies at a center for higher learning. It’s there and in that domain that first principle thinking resides. It’s in the realm of science that we’re taught not to take things as fact that haven’t been tested ourselves, ripped apart by our peers, questioned mercilessly, and tossed in the trash only to begin again from square one. We tend to see first principles thinking more in the study of physics than in any other domain because there is little room in physics for assumptions. It’s there that the testing of evidence against experience takes on real meaning. 

So, what can we learn from first principle thinking? Why am I making such a big deal about this concept? Well, I bring it up because that’s what I do. I try to get you to think, but in less than conventional ways and by less than conventional means. Why? For one, because conventional thinking is just that, it’s conventional. There’s nothing exciting about conventional. It’s what everyone else is doing, it’s following the crowd, and it’s getting the same results or ending up at the same place as the crowd. By it’s very definition, conventional is in accordance with what is generally accepted or believed. A conventional thinker is concerned with what is generally held to be acceptable at the expense of individuality and sincerity, that’s the actual definition. And it’s not that there is no value in reasoning by analogy, or in conventional thinking. We all do it every single day in many areas and ways because it’s the easiest way to get from A to B. Why not follow the crowd? It’s a proven path. 

However, I bring up First Principle thinking or reasoning because it is in that domain, and with that type of thinking that the greatest change, the greatest inventions, the best new methods, and the most exciting breakthroughs are created. One of the best examples of first principle thinking is from Tesla founder, Elon Musk. Love him or hate him, without him we don’t have PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, and affordable flame throwers. Elon Musk is a big fan of first principles thinking and credits it for how he’s been able to build the companies he has. He doesn’t take anything as assumed. He essentially asks, are we using knowledge to inform us or constrain us? What are the rules for thinking about a thing? Who made those rules? Why are we to accept those as the rules? Can the rules be broken? Must I follow somebody else’s prescription to succeed? Rules are assumptions that constrain us. They stop us from thinking further. First principles thinking strips everything down to it’s most fundamental and indisputable truth. The most fundamental component that nobody can ever deny. Rene Descartes, the man famous for saying, “I think, therefore I am”, and the father of analytic geometry, used this first principles form of reason as the basis for all thinking. He was famous for believing that even our senses can’t be trusted to truly inform us because they often mislead us, so he rejected any ideas that can be doubted and then sought ways to gain what he called ‘genuine knowledge’ on a subject. In essence, he broke things down to their most basic and fundamental beginning points, the first principles, and then reasoned up from there. This kept him from just adopting someone else’s beliefs, which may be faulty, and allowed him to gain tremendous insight into things by seeking to experience and understand them for himself. 

So, how do we use first principles in life and business? Well, It all starts and ends with questions. Let me first warn you that first principles thinking is not an easy path. If you commit to this path for truth and greater knowledge, just know that not only is it the most difficult path, it’s also the loneliest path because very few are willing to do the difficult work of thinking in this way and the constant challenging of assumptions. And the first question is just that, what are the assumptions and preconceived ideas about a thing. Since I’m primarily talking to appraisers, what are the fundamental assumptions you’ve made about the appraisal process that guide and inform what you do and how you do it? Are you willing to challenge those assumptions? What are the factual assumptions you’ve made, either because you took as fact something somebody else told you that you’ve never challenged, or because you’ve simply never questioned something? The next question is about language. What are the languaging patterns you’re using as you frame ideas and solutions to assumptions that aren’t correct? What good is a solution to a problem you’ve assumed is correct that might not actually be a correct assumption? How many times have you challenged conventional thinking about something and asked, ‘why is it that way?’, ‘Does it have to be that way?’, and, if so, ‘why?’ 

If you look at an apple tree and just assume it’s a thing that produces apples, you wouldn’t be wrong. But therein lies the problem with conventional thinking. Because we’re not wrong in looking at an apple tree and assuming that’s it job, we make an assumption that stops us from thinking and questioning further. We think we know something. We pluck the apple from the branch, we hold it up and proclaim, ‘I have an apple from this apple tree!’ Again, you’re not wrong. But the apple is the unearned knowledge that we can experience and repeat over and over. You didn’t have to do any work to obtain that knowledge. Plucking the apple is the same thing as simply following the crowd. We can hold up the apple, point to the tree and proclaim, ‘this is an apple tree’, and all thinking stops there. It’s a shallow understanding, but not untrue. That’s reasoning by analogy. However, the truth seeker, the first principles thought master must never be satisfied with merely holding the fruit. The fruit is the final result of everything that is going on inside the branches. Those branches are attached to a tree trunk. That tree trunk goes into the earth from which it sprang forth. That tree trunk is attached to roots, roots that go deep into the earth and give the tree life. There is so much truth buried beneath the earth that any assumptions made about the apple tree are woefully incomplete. It’s not that the apple is unimportant, it’s that we shouldn’t stop at the fruit. A first principles thinker is concerned with the whole tree and all it’s component parts. It’s with this knowledge of the whole organism that we can be free of assumptions and follow the roots to something else. What might we discover by examining the roots? What connections might be made by shaking off the shackles of conventional thinking and giving the middle finger to all previous assumptions of things not truly known. First principles thinking means that you favor humility over pride and curiosity over conviction. You know what you don’t know, and you’re eager to discover new things. You don’t let your ideas become your identity. You look for reasons why you might be wrong, not just reasons why you must be right. You listen to ideas that make you think hard, not just the ones that make you feel good. And you surround yourself with people who can challenge your process and your assumptions, not just the ones who agree with your conclusions.

First principles thinking is how we make things better, friends. First principles thinking is why we might choose to tear apart our conventional appraisal business, strip it down to it’s component parts, cast aside all previous assumptions, and rebuild it only after taking nothing for granted. No process, no method, no reason, and no prior truth remains free from deep inquiry into the previous assumptions we may have made. First principles thinking demands that we ask, ‘why’ at least 3 times, possibly even 5 times. This means we look at something we’ve been doing and then we ask, ‘why?’. Whatever answer pops up, we then ask, ‘why?’. The answer to that question, ‘why?’, and on and on it goes until we’ve arrived at the most indisputable truth that can exist around that thing. It’s from there that we’re now free to begin rethinking how it could be done differently, or if it even needs to be done at all. First principles thinking keeps us in the mindset of always seeking a new truth about something and knowing there is likely a better way. Whatever we are doing today, whether it’s the actual process, the systems we deploy to complete the process, the customer service we think we give, or even just the reasons we’re actually in the business to begin with, is not exempt from first principles thinking and skeptical inquiry. Why? Why not? 

The Roman emperor, and famous Stoic, Marcus Aurelius said, “the object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” Almost all greatness requires a little insanity, but not all insanity produces greatness. In the end, at least from Aurelius’ view, the insane are those who never question their assumptions about certain things and simply follow the crowd. Challenge all of your assumptions from the fruits to the roots, my friends, and see what greatness you uncover. Until next week, I’m out…